With the beginning of the third fiscal quarter for 2014, we see analysts filing revenue reports and public companies announcing performance. We recently posted about the boon to desktop PC sales for 2014 -- recovering nearly 6% of a projected 7% decline -- and now it looks like Intel has similarly good news for the PC industry.
The semiconductor giant has reported 2Q14 revenue as $13.8B -- an 8% hike over 2Q13's $12.8B -- netting a $2.8B profit. Intel's quarterly profits have risen 40% over its 2Q13 reports of $2B. Promisingly for the world of PCs, Intel showed an $8.7B revenue in its PC Client Group (including desktops), a 6% increase over last year.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich attributes much of the company's newfound momentum to data centers and the Baytrail SoCs. Krzanich said in an investor meeting:
"With the ramp of our Baytrail SoC family, we have expanded into new segments such as Chrome-based systems, and we are on track to meet our 40 million unit tablet goal. In addition, we hit an important qualification milestone for our upcoming 14nm Broadwell product, and expect the first systems to be on shelves during the holidays."
The Broadwell forecast is in-line with a previous statement by Krzanich, also predicting a holiday launch.
The climate of semiconductor manufacturers has changed heavily since the introduction of mobile devices. Intel's biggest competition is no longer AMD, but instead ARM, who've branched-out to nearly all verticals at this point. The incumbent semiconductor manufacturer has struggled to chip away at ARM's stranglehold on the mobile marketplace, and that's not the only place ARM has taken by force: ARM can be found in kitchen appliances, gaming mice, keyboards, APUs and server processors in partnership with AMD, powerful mobile GPUs in partnership with nVidia (TEGRA), and some tablets and phones. If ARM and nVidia could secure both necessary x86 / x86-64 licenses required for an x86 CPU -- which will happen when hell freezes over -- you could guarantee there'd be a shake-up in the components world.
Intel likely feels threatened by nVidia -- probably a reason we won't see NVLink expand outside of IBM platforms -- and will react accordingly. AMD remains as Intel's only noteworthy competition in the desktop component space, though it is probable that Intel has bigger fish to fry right now.
- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.